Hepner / Gepner

The strongest documented line begins with Avraham Yitzhak Hepner, buried in Warsaw in 1933, whose gravestone names his father as Israel David. A card in the Łódź population register of 1916–1921 records an Izrael Dawid Hepner, born 1855 in Żelechów, son of Abram — a widower living in Łódź with three children, Fajga, Chawa/Ewa and Binem, the names the family knows as Avraham Yitzhak's siblings — who left for Warsaw in June 1920. That makes him the probable father; a document naming the son is still to be found.

1. Abram

   Named in record

   19th century · Żelechów area

   Named as father on Izrael Dawid's Łódź register card

2. DocumentedFather named on Izrael Dawid's own register card (Łódź, scan 118).

   Izrael Dawid Hepner

   ישראל דודProbable father

   born 1855 · Żelechów · Łódź by 1895 · to Warsaw, June 1920

   Probable father of Avraham Yitzhak

3. ProbableGravestone names the father as Israel David; the children on the Łódź card — Fajga, Chawa/Ewa, Binem — are the names the family knows as Avraham Yitzhak's siblings. No record yet names him as this Izrael Dawid's son.

   Avraham Yitzhak Hepner

   אברהם יצחק העפנערConfirmed

   c. 1885 – 9 December 1933 · Died Warsaw · buried Okopowa Street cemetery

   Kohen · son of Israel David

4. ProbableFamily knowledge: Majer was Avraham Yitzhak's son (Eli Gafner, Majer's son). Majer's Łódź birth act of 5 May 1918 would document it and name his mother.

   Majer Gepner

   Confirmed

   born 5 May 1918 · Łódź · resident of Dzierżoniów, 1948

   Son of Avraham Yitzhak (family knowledge) · holder of the 1948 emigration passport

Everything documented about Avraham Yitzhak begins with this stone. It gives his name, his father's name, his priestly descent, the date of death — and, in a damaged line, his age.

Cemetery record

Record: cemetery.jewish.org.pl/id_20517/info/

Strong candidate for Avraham Yitzhak's father

The Łódź population register compiled under German occupation in 1916–1921 holds a card for an Izrael Dawid Hepner whose name, generation, home town and later move to Warsaw all fit the father named on the gravestone. The volume (Henkel – Herc) was read in full; the cards that bear on the family are reproduced below.

Spis ludności Łodzi, 1916–1921 · volume Henkel – Herc · Archiwum Państwowe w Łodzi · fonds Akta miasta Łodzi · 39/221/0/4.12/24657 · 314 scans · Szukaj w Archiwach, unit 6209045

The card

Nazwisko · surname	Heppner — written with two p's on the card; the archive's index normalises it to Hepner
Imię · given names	Izrael Dawid
Imię ojca · father	Abram
Stan lub zawód · status	wdowiec — widower
Urodzony · born	1855 w Żelechowie — in Żelechów
Ziemi · county	p. Garwoliński — Garwolin county
Wyznanie · religion	mojż. — Mosaic (Jewish)
Przynależność państwowa	polska — Polish
Stały mieszkaniec · permanent resident of	Żelechowa — Żelechów
Mieszkanie · address in Łódź	Skwerowa 16, district VIII; a later line reads Benedykta 42
Uwagi · pencil note	„… VI 20 … do Warszawy” — to Warsaw, June 1920 (day partly legible)

Familienglieder – Członkowie rodziny, as written on the card

Name	Born	Place	Family knowledge
Fajga Fela H.	1 V 1900	Łódź	Known as Fajga, a sister of Avraham Yitzhak
Chawa Ewa	14 VII 1895	Łódź	Known as Chawa / Ewa, a sister of Avraham Yitzhak
Binem, Beno	1896	Łódź	Known as Binem, a brother of Avraham Yitzhak

Fajga, Chawa/Ewa and Binem are exactly the names the family knows as the siblings of Avraham Yitzhak — Eli Gafner, Majer's son, found this card independently on 7 September 2026 and made the match. That is the strongest reason to read this as his father's household. Avraham Yitzhak himself is not on the card; as an adult of about thirty he would have had a card of his own. A pencil note beside the family rows reads „… do Lublina” (to Lublin) with a date like 28 II 19…; which member it refers to is not clear.

Family knowledge: Eli Gafner, son of Majer Gepner, message of 7 September 2026.

What it changes

• The rare full name matches the father named on the gravestone exactly; the generation fits; the card records a move to Warsaw, where Avraham Yitzhak died in 1933; and the three children on it carry the names the family knows as his siblings. Together these make the identification probable.
• It is still not documentary proof. The missing piece is a birth, marriage, population or death record that names Avraham Yitzhak as the son of this Izrael Dawid — or, just as good, a record for Fajga, Chawa or Binem that names Avraham Yitzhak as their brother.
• He was legally domiciled in Żelechów but living in Łódź, where his younger children were born from 1895. The family may therefore have moved from Żelechów to Łódź between about 1885 and 1895 — which would also explain why Majer was born in Łódź in 1918.
• The clerk wrote the surname Heppner, with two p's; the archive's index gives Hepner. Both forms now have to be searched.

Related cards in the same volume

Mojżesz Hepner, son of Izrael

Probable son of Izrael Dawid

Born 1877 in Żelechów, Garwolin county — the same town and county as Izrael Dawid, who would have been 22. A widower and overseer (nadzorca) living at Pańska 45 with seven children. If the link holds, he is Avraham Yitzhak's elder brother.

Imię ojca

Izrael

Urodzony

1877 w Żelechowie, p. Garwoliński

Stan lub zawód

(wdowiec) nadzorca — widower, overseer

Stały mieszkaniec

Łodzi

Children (all born Łódź)

Bencjon 1899 · Pinkus (year unclear) · Chaja 1905 · Ryfka 1907 · Aron 1910 · Brucha 1912 · Lajb 18 X 1917

Fela Hepner, daughter of Aron and Estera Bina

Żelechów Hepner, link unknown

Born 15 February 1896 in Żelechów; married; arrived in Łódź from Żelechów and registered on 21 February 1921 in the household of Izak Klejman. Her father Aron is a Żelechów Hepner of Izrael Dawid's generation — a possible brother or cousin, unproven.

Imiona rodziców

Aron i Estera Bina

Urodzona

15 II 1896, Żelechów

Stan rodzinny

mężatka — married

Paszport

issued in Warsaw, 25 VIII 1916, no. 65565/II

Skąd przybył

Żelechów · registered 21 II 1921, IV Komisariat

Icek Hepner, son of Wolf

Not Avraham Yitzhak

Born 1886 in Radogoszcz (a suburb of Łódź), a trader; his father is Wolf, not Israel David, so he is not our Avraham Yitzhak. The card matters for another reason: the clerk wrote the surname as both „Gepner” and „Hepner” — the same person, both spellings, in Łódź in 1921. His brother Juda (scan 123, born 1889, father Wolf) shares the addresses.

Nazwisko

Gepner / Hepner — both written

Imię ojca

Wolf

Urodzony

1886 w Radogoszczu

Stan lub zawód

handlarz — trader

Mieszkanie

Aleksandrowska 26 → Kiełbacha 4 (3 II 1921)

The permanent population books

Before the 1916–1921 census cards, Łódź kept Russian-era ledgers of permanent residents by house number. Their volunteer name index places the whole family — both generations — in three volumes. Only the index has been read: each scan is a double-page spread in Russian handwriting, and the public thumbnails are too small to transcribe.

Two households, as the index and the family agree

Probable — index and family knowledge; pages not yet read

The ledger index lists names without saying who belongs to which entry; the groupings above follow the 1916–1921 cards and the family's own knowledge. Abram Ber, Aron Hersz, Sura Sima, Chaja Małka, Zysla, Rywka, Estera, a second Gitla (born 1880) and a second Hendla (born 1923) are also in the book and are not yet placed. Everything here is provisional until the pages themselves are read.

Where is Izrael Dawid buried?

• Warsaw, Okopowa Street: the Foundation for Documentation of Jewish Cemeteries database lists 17 Hepner / Hefner / Gepner graves and every Israel David regardless of surname; none is him. The database covers the stones inventoried in 2006–2010, not the burial register.
• Warsaw, Bródno: no Hepner-type grave in the database.
• Żelechów: the 51 inventoried stones (1848–1936) include no Hepner and no Israel David; most of the cemetery's stones were destroyed.
• Łódź, Bracka Street: the burial index (about 180,000 burials) is searchable only through JRI-Poland / JOWBR, which need a login. Hendla Hepner, died 1914, should be there, and so should Izrael Dawid if the family brought him back from Warsaw.
• Any stone of Izrael Dawid's must carry the priestly hands or „הכהן”: his son's stone proves the family were Kohanim, and the status passes from father to son. None of the Israel David stones at Okopowa or Bródno has a Kohen marking or a father Avraham.
• Open lead: Lea Gitel Hefner, daughter of Eliezer, wife of Natan, died 2 December 1933 aged 58 (Okopowa 4a/7/3). Her stone spells the name העפנער exactly as Avraham Yitzhak's does, and she died a week before him. Her husband was Natan, so she is not Majer's mother; whether Natan Hefner was a brother or cousin of Avraham Yitzhak is unknown. The database photograph is too small to read the husband's line.

Checked and set aside

• Izaak Gäpner (scan 117), son of Abram, born 1852 in Rawa, Rawa county — a servant; father's name matches but the birthplace does not.
• Mendel Göpner (scan 130), son of Abram, born 6 VI 1872 in Góry-Malenieckie, Końskie county — same objection.
• Gustaw, Gotfryd, Ludwik, Alfred, Paulina and Juliusz Hepner — Evangelical Łódź families; not related.
• Chaim, Chil and Chaja Gepner of Radom, and the Gepners of Odrzywół — separate families.

The family holds Majer Gepner's original postwar Polish passport. The photographs below are the family's own; the transcriptions are read directly from the pages.

The pages

Select any page to view it at full size. Three photographs were taken sideways and are shown rotated; the originals are kept unaltered in the archive.

The same family name appears in four scripts across the records, and each system spelled it its own way. Every form has to be searched separately.

The alternation between H and G was already normal in Polish records: the Łódź population register of 1916–1921 interfiles Gepner and Hepner cards and, on Icek's address card, writes both spellings for one person. That makes it entirely plausible that an older Hepner line reappears after Soviet documentation as Gepner, although a document tying Majer's own Gepner to a Hepner parent has not yet been found.

Żelechów, a small town in Garwolin county south-east of Warsaw, is currently the strongest geographic hypothesis for Avraham Yitzhak's birth. The reasons are cumulative rather than conclusive.

• Izrael Dawid Hepner's Łódź register card gives Żelechów as his birthplace and as his place of permanent residence, even while he lived in Łódź.
• Mojżesz Hepner, son of Izrael, born 1877, was also born in Żelechów — the family was there for at least the 1850s to 1870s.
• Izrael Dawid's younger children were born in Łódź from 1895, so a son born around 1885–1888 could have been born in Żelechów or in Łódź; the Żelechów population books and Łódź Jewish birth records are the two places to look.
• Hepner and Gepner families are independently documented in Żelechów in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, under several spellings; Fela Hepner, daughter of Aron, born there in 1896, reached Łódź in 1921.
• A Pejsach Gepner, son of Israel, born in Żelechów in 1893, appears in Soviet repression records. He is a potentially important relative, but the record does not prove that his father was Izrael Dawid.

Żelechów Yizkor material: JewishGen Żelechów Yizkor Book

What the family remembers, written down as told. None of it is treated as fact until a record confirms it — but each memory points at a document, and one of them has already been matched by the gravestone.

1. Majer was born in a village called Łazy, not far from Warsaw, where Avraham Yitzhak had a farm or was a partner in one. The family visited the village on its trip to Poland.

   Open — conflicts with the passport

   Amir Gafner, from family stories

   In the records

   Majer's 1948 passport gives Łódź as his birthplace. Both can be true only if the passport names the registration town rather than the birthplace, or if the family lived at Łazy after his birth. There are many villages called Łazy; the one the family visited has not yet been fixed on the map.

   What would settle it

   Majer's birth act (Łódź, 5 May 1918, or a delayed registration); the 1921 census returns or land records for the candidate Łazy.

2. Avraham Yitzhak grew and traded vegetables.

   Open

   Amir Gafner, from family stories

   In the records

   A 1930 Warsaw address directory lists „Hepner Abr., handl., Dzika 38” — a trader (handlarz) of that name. Whether this is our Avraham Yitzhak is not yet proven.

   What would settle it

   The 1933 Warsaw death act (occupation and address); Warsaw trade registers; the directory entry's telephone subscriber file.

3. He moved the family to Warsaw so that Majer, his eldest son, could study in a cheder with a bigger rabbi.

   Open

   Amir Gafner, from family stories

   In the records

   Dzika 38 — the address in the 1930 directory — housed three cheders with about 133 boys in the 1930/31 school year, according to the research notes. The move would fall between Majer's birth in 1918 and 1930. Izrael Dawid, the probable grandfather, had gone to Warsaw in June 1920.

   What would settle it

   Warsaw registration or kehilla school records for Dzika 38; the death act's address line.

4. Avraham Yitzhak died when Majer was about fourteen.

   Matches the gravestone

   Amir Gafner, from family stories

   In the records

   The stone and the cemetery record give 9 December 1933; Majer, born 5 May 1918, was fifteen and a half. Memory and record agree within a year.

   What would settle it

   Already settled by the gravestone.

5. Majer's mother is a mystery. Her name may have been Gitla. After her husband's death she was left alone with many children and „left” — perhaps she was hospitalised.

   Probable — a Gitla is in the Łódź index

   Amir Gafner, from family stories

   In the records

   The Łódź permanent-population book for houses 752–759 lists a Gitla Hepner born 1888 in the same volume as Abram Icek — the right age for his wife. Her fate after 1933 is still unknown.

   What would settle it

   The ledger page itself; the marriage record; Majer's birth act; the widow line of the 1933 death act; Warsaw hospital admission books after 1933.

6. Majer had an older sister, Henia, who survived Auschwitz, reached Sweden and then Israel, where she reunited with her brothers: Majer, Moshe — who went to Israel and later to Brazil — and the youngest, Shea (Yehoshua), who lived in Haifa.

   Probable — matches the Łódź index

   Amir Gafner, from family stories

   In the records

   The same ledger index lists Hendla Hepner born 1916 — Henia, two years older than Majer and named after her grandmother Hendla who died in 1914 — together with Moszek and Szyja. Four names remembered, four names in the book.

   What would settle it

   The ledger pages; Łódź birth acts for 1916 and after; Henia's Auschwitz, Swedish and Israeli records.

7. Henia was older than Majer but not the eldest: another sister — her name may have been Chana — was already married and living in Łódź with a family of her own. After the parents died, her husband took Majer to work for him installing radios: climbing onto rooftops to fit the aerials for the sets in the flats below.

   Open — fits the Łódź ID-card registers

   Amir Gafner, from Majer's own stories

   In the records

   „After the parents died” implies Gitla also died, in or after 1933. The Łódź ledger index has an unplaced Chaja Małka Hepner (a Chana Fajga, born 1900, is Majer's aunt). The Łódź municipal identity-card registers of the 1930s are tagged with Majer Chil, Moszek, Symcha and a „Chendla” Hepner — the family back in Łódź, as the story says.

   What would settle it

   The ID-card register entries (units 9645124 and 9645125), which give birth date, address and occupation; the ledger pages; Gitla's death record.

8. Henia introduced her best friend from Auschwitz, Rachel Guttman of Warsaw, to her brother Majer. They married; Rachel is the writer's grandmother.

   Family knowledge

   Amir Gafner, direct family knowledge

   In the records

   Majer's 1948 passport still shows him unmarried, so the marriage came after the emigration passport was issued.

   What would settle it

   Not a research question; noted so the Guttman line can be added later.

9. The family were Hasidim. A paternal relative remembers that an ancestor — roughly „grandfather's grandfather” — was connected to Kotzk.

   Open — geography fits

   Eli Gafner (Majer's son); the exact rebbe the family followed is not remembered

   In the records

   Kock (Kotzk) lies 42 km from Żelechów, inside the same Przysucha family of courts as the town's own mid-century rebbe. See the next section.

   What would settle it

   Obituary notices in the Warsaw Yiddish press, 10–13 December 1933, which often name the shtibl; the Żelechów yizkor book's chapter on the town's Hasidic circles; Okopowa burial-society records.

10. Majer was in the USSR during the war, and there the surname was written and pronounced Gepner.

    Plausible

    Family memory; the 1948 passport already reads Gepner

    In the records

    Russian regularly renders a foreign H as Г, and the Łódź register shows Gepner and Hepner used for the same people before the war.

    What would settle it

    Soviet wartime records under Гепнер / Гефнер, Майер / Меер; postwar Dzierżoniów and Central Committee of Polish Jews registers.

The family knows it was Hasidic and remembers Kotzk, but not the rebbe it followed. The town itself gives the strongest hints: Żelechów sat inside one particular family of Hasidic courts, and every one of them was a day's journey away.

Żelechów was a Hasidic town from the movement's first generation. Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev (1740–1809), a disciple of the Maggid of Mezritch, served as its rabbi in the early 1770s after Ryczywół and before Pinsk and Berdichev, and met fierce opposition there from the Mitnagdim — the town was contested ground before it was Hasidic ground.

In the middle of the nineteenth century Żelechów had a rebbe of its own: Yehoshua Asher Rabinowicz (1798–1862), son of the Holy Jew of Przysucha, held court in the town before moving it to Parysów, 24 km away. The Przysucha school is the one from which Kotzk grew — Menachem Mendel Morgenstern was the Holy Jew's and Simcha Bunim's disciple — so a Żelechów family of the 1840s and 1850s lived inside the same family of courts whether it prayed with the town's rebbe or travelled to Kock.

Kock is 42 km to the south-east. The Kotzker settled there in 1829 and died in 1859; most of his followers then went to Yitzchak Meir Alter, the Chiddushei HaRim, whose court at Góra Kalwaria (Ger), 51 km to the west, became the largest in Poland. A smaller Kotzk line continued under the Kotzker's son David in Kock and later at Puławy (Pilov) and Sokołów, and his son-in-law Avraham Bornsztain founded Sochaczew. A family that remembers „Kotzk” could, by the 1920s, have belonged to any of these — or to a Kotzk-minded shtibl in Warsaw.

The Żelechów yizkor book (1953) has a chapter, in Yiddish, on the town's Hasidic circles, and another on „the rebbe's yard”. It is the natural place to learn which shtiblekh existed in the town in the years Izrael Dawid and his children lived there, and it has not yet been read for this research.

The courts around Żelechów

1. 24 kmParysówYehoshua Asher Rabinowicz moved his court here from Żelechów; d. 1862
2. 35 kmKozieniceThe Maggid of Kozhnitz, d. 1814, and his line
3. 42 kmKock (Kotzk)Menachem Mendel Morgenstern, 1829–1859; son David continued
4. 44 kmPuławy (Pilov)Kotzk line under R. Chaim Yisrael Morgenstern
5. 51 kmGóra Kalwaria (Ger)Chiddushei HaRim from 1859; most Kotzker Hasidim followed him
6. 52 kmRadzyń PodlaskiIzbica–Radzyn line, Gershon Henoch Leiner
7. 71 kmSokołów PodlaskiKotzk line in the interwar years
8. 77 kmWarsawHundreds of shtiblekh; Dzika 38 held three cheders in 1930/31

Four ways to read „Kotzk”

„Rabbi”, „rebbe” and „shtibl” are not the same thing. A rabbi was a halakhic authority with a communal appointment; a rebbe was a Hasidic leader accepted by followers, usually by descent by the late nineteenth century; a shtibl was a prayer room of one court's followers. Interwar Warsaw had hundreds of shtiblekh, and many small courts had only a few. The family's memory could attach to any of the three levels.

Sources for this section

• Żelechów yizkor book, JewishGen translation — table of contents — „The Hasidic Circles in Żelechów”, I. Wajnberg, p. 141 (Yiddish); „The Rebbe's Yard”, M. Wancjer, p. 41.
• Levi Yitzchok of Berditchev — Wikipedia — Rabbi of Ryczywół, Żelechów, Pinsk and Berdichev.
• Parysów — International Jewish Cemetery Project — Yehoshua Asher Rabinowicz of Żelechów, son of the Holy Jew, brought his Hasidim to Parysów.

The questions that remain open have specific sources attached to them. These are the collections most likely to close them, in priority order.

1. 00

   Read the three Łódź permanent-population ledgers

   Szukaj w Archiwach units 6208176 (287 scans), 6207971 (624) and 6207986 (570) · Archiwum Państwowe w Łodzi

   The index already places both households in these books. The pages would give Abram Icek's birth date and birthplace, Gitla's maiden name and parents, the children's birth dates, and the family's moves — in one stroke. The scans must be downloaded at full resolution from the viewer („Pobierz”); the public thumbnails cannot be read.

   Unit 6208176, houses 752–759

2. 0.5

   Łódź identity-card registers of the 1930s

   Szukaj w Archiwach units 9645124 and 9645125 (Zarząd Miejski w Łodzi, zespół nr 3, surnames Ch–Ł) · also 9645117

   Tagged with Hepner, Majer Chil; Hepner, Moszek; Hepner, Symcha; Hepner, Chendla; and Hepner, Srul Szyja. An identity card was issued at eighteen, so these would be the siblings in Łódź between about 1934 and 1939 — with birth dates, addresses and occupations, including, if the story is right, Majer as a radio installer.

   Unit 9645125

3. 01

   Łódź Jewish birth records, 1885–1888 and 1895–1900

   USC Łódź (Jewish) · Archiwum Państwowe w Łodzi · indexed in JRI-Poland

   The Łódź register shows Izrael Dawid's children Chawa Ewa (14 VII 1895), Binem (1896) and Fajga Fela (1 V 1900) were born in Łódź. Their birth acts would name their mother — Izrael Dawid's wife, who had died by 1916–1921 — and confirm the father's full name. The same series should be searched for an Abram Icek / Izaak Hepner born 1884–1888 with father Izrael Dawid.

4. 02

   Majer's birth act (Łódź, 5 May 1918) and his parents' marriage

   USC Łódź (Jewish), or Żelechów · JRI-Poland — Geneteka's Łódź index has neither

   The birth act names both parents and would document the Avraham Yitzhak → Majer link, give Majer's mother's name (the family remembers „Gitla”), and show whether the family was already written Gepner. Avraham Yitzhak's marriage, probably 1905–1917, would name his father outright. Geneteka's index of Łódź Jewish marriages 1900–1920 has no Abram Icek Hepner, so the JRI-Poland index and the registers themselves must be checked.

5. 03

   Warsaw civil death act, 9 December 1933

   The death act may settle the 45-versus-48 question and should give birthplace, address, occupation, the widow's name and the informants — three family memories at once.

6. 04

   Obituaries in the Warsaw Yiddish press, 10–13 December 1933

   Haynt · Der Moment · Dos Yidishe Togblat · Nasz Przegląd — Polona and the CBJ digital libraries

   Death notices often name the deceased's shtibl or rebbe, his children and his address. This is the most direct route to the Hasidic affiliation the family no longer remembers.

7. 05

   Żelechów population registers, 1903–1919

   78/162/0 · Akta miasta Żelechowa · Warsaw State Archive, Otwock branch

   Izrael Dawid remained a permanent resident (stały mieszkaniec) of Żelechów even while living in Łódź, so the Żelechów books may still carry his household — including a son born around 1885 — with dates and places of birth and departures.

   Szukaj w Archiwach, collection 78/162/0

8. 06

   The Żelechów yizkor book's Hasidic chapter, and Warsaw shtibl lists

   „Di khsidishe krayzn in Zshelekhov”, I. Wajnberg, p. 141 (Yiddish) · Warsaw kehilla records

   Which shtiblekh existed in Żelechów in the 1850s–1890s, and which Hasidic houses of prayer stood near Dzika 38 in the 1930s. Together with the obituaries this would narrow „Kotzk” to a court.

   JewishGen yizkor translation, table of contents

9. 07

   Warsaw court civil-register archive

   72/3190/0 · extends through 1939

   A key candidate for a court copy of the 1933 death act. The collection is not digitised at unit level, so it has to be requested.

   Szukaj w Archiwach, collection 72/3190/0

10. 08

    The rest of the Łódź register, and Mojżesz's household

    39/221/0/4.12 · other volumes

    The Henkel–Herc volume has no card for an Abram or Abram Icek Hepner or Gepner, so Avraham Yitzhak was not registered in Łódź under those spellings in 1916–1921 — consistent with a household already elsewhere. Hefner would fall in an earlier volume. Mojżesz Hepner's seven children and Izrael Dawid's three are the next generation's cousins; their later cards may lead to Majer's parents.

11. 8.5

    Łódź burial index for Hendla (1914) and Izrael Dawid

    JRI-Poland / JOWBR — Bracka Street cemetery index, login required

    Warsaw's Okopowa and Bródno databases and the Żelechów list have been searched without result. The Łódź cemetery index is the remaining online source: Hendla's 1914 burial should be there, and Izrael Dawid's if he was brought back from Warsaw.

12. 09

    Which Łazy?

    The family visited the village on its trip to Poland. The trip's photographs or notes, then the 1921 census and land records for that Łazy, would show whether a Hepner farmed there. Warsaw's own interwar residents' registers were largely destroyed in 1944, so the village records matter more than usual.

13. 10

    Żelechów Jewish vital records · JRI-Poland

    Żelechów exists as a research town in JRI-Poland, but its public town page was not reliably accessible during this research. Birth years 1877, 1885 and 1888 should be checked under Hepner, Heppner, Hefner, Gepner, Giepner and Hegner, with father Israel, Srul or Dawid.

Every claim on this page, with the reason for its status.

1. 1855

   Izrael Dawid Hepner is born in Żelechów, son of Abram (Łódź register card).

2. 1877

   Mojżesz Hepner, son of Izrael, is born in Żelechów — probably Izrael Dawid's eldest known son.

3. c. 1885 or c. 1888

   Probable birth window for Avraham Yitzhak, depending on whether the weathered gravestone age is 48 or 45.

4. 14 July 1895

   Chawa Ewa, daughter of Izrael Dawid, is born in Łódź — the family is in Łódź by now.

5. 1 May 1900

   Fajga Fela, daughter of Izrael Dawid, is born in Łódź (a son, Binem, was born there in 1896).

6. 1914

   Hendla Hepner, Izrael Dawid's wife, dies in Łódź (ledger index; page not yet read).

7. 1916

   Hendla — Henia — is born to Abram Icek and Gitla in Łódź and named after her grandmother (ledger index; family knowledge).

8. 5 May 1918

   Majer Gepner's passport records his birth in Łódź.

9. 1918 or after

   Family memory places Majer's birth and early years in a village called Łazy near Warsaw, where Avraham Yitzhak farmed and traded vegetables.

10. June 1920

    A pencil note on Izrael Dawid's Łódź card records his departure for Warsaw.

11. 21 February 1921

    Fela Hepner, born 1896 in Żelechów to Aron and Estera Bina, registers in Łódź on arrival from Żelechów.

12. 1920s

    Family memory: the family moves to Warsaw so that Majer, the eldest son, can study in a cheder with a bigger rabbi.

13. 1930

    A Warsaw address directory lists „Hepner Abr., handl., Dzika 38”, an address that housed three cheders — if this is Avraham Yitzhak.

14. 9 December 1933

    Avraham Yitzhak Hepner dies and is buried at Okopowa, Warsaw.

15. June 1948

    Majer's Polish emigration passport is stamped in Warsaw: resident of Dzierżoniów, valid for Italy.